JEAN SMART 'SAMANTHA WHO?'; Roles of the Season, Maybe a Lifetime

By GINIA BELLAFANTE

Published: June 8, 2008

Jean Smart has aged well. She doesn't just look good; as an actress she's gotten better and funnier. Nearly every time she has appeared on television in the past few years, you have wanted her to sit tight and stay. As Martha Logan, wife of the weasely, Nixonian commander in chief during the fifth season of ''24'' (and his ex, briefly and brilliantly this past season), she gave us torment and grievance and righteous fury. As Regina Newly, mother to Christina Applegate's recovering amnesiac on the ABC comedy, ''Samantha Who?,'' she makes narcissism seem like parental entitlement and disdain a joy for whoever is looking. Regina has little use for her daughter's search for selfhood -- she regarded the coma that had caused her forgetfulness as an opportunity to pitch the family's woeful fortunes to a home-makeover show -- and Ms. Smart brings a restrained relish to every second of the insanity.